This chill pair clings fast to what warmth they may, finding it in each other, like a flame hidden deep inside. Or perhaps only the memory of a flame. Shadows guide
Ariandel and keep
Irithyll hidden away, like a secret under icy glitter.
The Hollow Ossuary offers much to a pair seeking empty spaces and lightless corners. Their hatchlings are fond of shadows, can withstand cold, and tend not to blink very often.
Light in this part of the Ossuary is sluggish. Honeyed. Dust hovers motionless in sunbeams like flies trapped in amber. In this hollow between emptied crypts, the light that breaks is caught in fractured bodies, their scales mottled and damaged but still gleaming.
Sunyata's only motion is the slowly shifting glint of light as the sun moves through the sky. His perfect stillness is tested against the roving slink of
Katabasis as she spirals around him, moving in to touch and then away again, a constant journey.
Their sunbeam-studded hatchlings are either elegant or frivolous, capable always of seeing the bright side of life. But they can also keep as suddenly still as a held breath.
By studying the magic of the ancients,
Neuromancer has perfected a series of nanotechnology that infests everything he touches. Obeying their arcane coding, endless waves of tiny robots wash over a victim, injecting minuscule amounts of poison -- or medicine, if you can believe his smiling words. This substance, whatever it is, gives visions of a shining place, perfect and serene: a heaven marred by its loss each time the vision fades. Through constant exposure,
Ataraxia now sees only those incandescent lines, smooth and crisp, blazing and cool at the same time.
The nanobots do not last long away from their master, but each hatchling will carry them away from the nest to live colorful if brief lives. The sublime visions they provide in their new homes linger only as memory, bringing fascination, curiosity, and worst of all, ideas.
Not every magic is easy to bear. Spells may be too heavy for a dragon to shoulder, too much of a burden to carry around -- but set the magic into stone, set the stone into flesh, and even the most chaotic powers can be borne. But the choice is irrevocable and the magic cannot be undone. The commitment
Cantrip and
Bruja have made to each other is eclipsed only by their commitment to their sorcery -- power over life, over breath, over blood.
Splinters of their enchantment, their pride and their geas, bind to each hatchling. Blood magic is their nature, and it cannot be denied.
A patch of mushrooms infiltrates one of the many tombs, a pillowy nest for the eggs of the gardener
Akala and his bright mate,
Lanakila. No common mushrooms spring up here -- only a variety that is poison to the touch and consumes decaying organic matter. They grow best and most virulent over corpses. And this spot is tended with care.
Their
Toxikoi hatchlings can withstand the poison spores that hang in the air, ignorant of the dangers. In fact, they carry new and surprising toxins of their own, signaled by the warning coloration of their bright wings.
Though he looms large,
Sithis moves in perfect silence, his coiled energy ready to lash out -- but tightly dominated, held at bay by his will.
Nocturnal, mistress of the night, flits from shadow to shadow, revealed at times by the glimmering of her magical wings. They own the dark, control the shadows, and bare their blades whenever called upon. They hear every whisper given to the darkness, every plea for mercy… or for vengeance.
Their hatchlings are bred for stealth and umbramancy, the ability to draw shadows closer in -- or drive them away entirely.
A patch of bushes juts in through this corner of the Hollow Ossuary, its stingy leaves negligible among a twisted tangle of desiccated branches. They must be weeds, so wild do they grow, and seemingly untended. A dry, faded green but for the thorns -- incarnadine, blood-tipped in appearance. It is not blood, however; nothing that thrums through a heart. It is sap, the same sticky yet poisonous substance that oozes from breaks in the stems, lifeblood of the flora.
Briarheart and his
Bramble may be hard to see here, when they visit. Their sinuous shapes blend into this withered, blood-flecked backdrop. Do they know a path to avoid the barbs? Will their hatchlings escape the nest unscarred?
Their crystalline bodies glint with oily rainbows, darkly gleaming in the twisting light that filters through walls no longer solid due to the depredations of time.
Rhuk and
Mereguint often let this be the only hint of life as they perch, looming and watching, like gargoyles--or grotesques. Stony faces yield no hint of emotion, but the devotion here is true, for each keeps the other always in sight.
Shattered bones make a cozy nest for a pair who calls the Hollow Ossuary home. And it is possible, if only barely, to see glimpses of ossified fragments incorporated deeply in the translucent bodies of their hatchlings.
Do not bask overlong in their presence, for though they are cheerful and affectionate,
Apricorn and
Fallarbor are rather hazardous. That warm feeling that slowly builds in one's heart is not love but the slow death of radiation poisoning.
They do seem to know, at least, who among these shadowed ruins is immune to their toxicity. Hopefully those discerning skills will be passed on to their hatchlings, along with their laughter, their adoration, and their poison.
[Members of the
Toxikoi subspecies. All hatchlings will be
Radiant Toxicotters.]
Bright hues are a caution: What you see is deadly. Poisonous to the touch, lethal if consumed, fatal to be near. But there are also mimics, whose brightness is no more than a pretense, a deception of danger. Sometimes, the hazard is actually harmless. The penalty for being wrong in this case is severe, so whether the mimic is
Paxilon or
Ixchel, well, does it matter?
Hatchlings from this pair are often toxic. But not always.
Pairs continued in next post
